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Marty Makary | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).png) Official portrait, 2025 | |
| 27thCommissioner of Food and Drugs | |
| Assumed office April 1, 2025 | |
| President | Donald Trump |
| Deputy | Sara Brenner |
| Preceded by | Robert Califf |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Martin Adel Makary Liverpool, England |
| Education | |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Surgeon |
| Field | Abdominal surgery |
| Institutions | |
| Sub-specialties | Islet transplant surgery |
| Website | University website |
Martin Adel Makary (/məˈkæri/) is a British-Americansurgeon, professor, author, andmedical commentator who has served as the 27thcommissioner of food and drugs since 2025. He practicessurgical oncology and gastrointestinallaparoscopic surgery atJohns Hopkins Hospital, is Mark Ravitch Chair in Gastrointestinal Surgery atJohns Hopkins School of Medicine, and is the chief of Islet Transplant Surgery at Johns Hopkins. Makary completed his surgical residency atGeorgetown University and sub-specialty training in surgical oncology and gastrointestinal surgery at Johns Hopkins under John Cameron, later joining Cameron’s faculty practice.
Makary has pioneered advanced laparoscopic procedures, including the first laparoscopic Whipple and Frey’s procedures at Johns Hopkins, and led the development of “The Surgery Checklist” in collaboration with theWorld Health Organization. Makary has held several leadership roles at Johns Hopkins, including Credentials Chair, Director of Quality and Safety for Surgery, clinical lead for the Sibley Innovation Hub, and Executive Director of Improving Wisely. He has published extensively on surgical safety, frailty,teamwork, and hospital quality, and has advocated for public reporting of physician-endorsed quality measures, price transparency, and reform indrug pricing.
Makary is also a bestselling author, with works includingUnaccountable,The Price We Pay,Mama Maggie, andBlind Spots, focusing on improvinghealthcare systems, critical evaluation ofmedical practices, and personal narratives of humanitarian work. In 2018, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.[1] Some of his research and commentary has been controversial, including a widely cited paper claimingmedical error is the third leadingcause of death in the United States. During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Makary supporteduniversal masking early on andvaccines for adults, but opposed broadvaccine mandates, certain school and university restrictions, and boosters for younger populations.[2][3][4][5]
In November 2024, President-ElectDonald Trump announced Makary would be his nominee to head theFood and Drug Administration (FDA) as its commissioner.[6][7] He was confirmed by theUnited States Senate in March 2025.[8] As FDA commissioner, Makary has prioritized modernizingregulatory processes, launchingAI-assisted review tools, and incorporatinganecdotal evidence infood safety decisions.
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Makary was born inLiverpool, England, and moved toBaltimore as a young child. HisEgyptian family later moved toDanville, Pennsylvania, when his father took a job as ahematologist at theGeisinger Medical Center. Makary holds undergraduate and medical degrees fromBucknell University, andThomas Jefferson University. He also completed a Masters of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree, with a concentration in health policy atHarvard University.
Makary completed a surgical residency atGeorgetown University[9][10] in Washington D.C. where he also worked as a writer for The Advisory Board Company. Makary completed sub-specialty surgery training at Johns Hopkins insurgical oncology andgastrointestinal surgery under surgeon John Cameron, before joining Cameron's faculty practice as a partner.[11] In his first few years on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, Makary researched and wrote articles on the prevention of surgical complications.[12] He published on frailty[13] as a medical condition, and on safety and teamwork culture in medicine. Makary is the first author of the original scientific publications describing "The Surgery Checklist".[14] Makary worked with theWorld Health Organization[15] to develop the official World Health Organization Surgical Checklist.[16]
Makary was named Mark Ravitch Chair in Gastrointestinal Surgery, an endowed chair at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, becoming the youngest endowed chair recipient at the time at the university. Three years later, he was named the Credentials Chair and Director of Quality and Safety for Surgery at Johns Hopkins.[9] In 2020, Makary was named Editor-in-Chief ofMedPage Today. He was also appointed chief of the Johns Hopkins Islet Transplant Center, clinical lead for the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub, Executive Director of Improving Wisely, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project to lower health care costs, and is founder of the Johns Hopkins Center For Surgical Outcomes Research and Clinical Trials.[17]
Makary is a pancreatic surgeon and has pioneered novel surgical procedures. He was awarded the Nobility in Science Award by the National Pancreas Foundation for performing the world's first series of laparoscopic pancreas islet transplant operations.[18] He has traveled with his international team overseas.[19] Makary specializes in advancedlaparoscopic surgery and performed the first laparoscopicWhipple surgery at Johns Hopkins and the first laparoscopicFrey's procedure for pancreatitis.[20][21]
Makary's research led to several partnerships, including a grant from theU.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, to study obesity treatment,[22] and a grant from the same agency to implement safety programs at 100 U.S. hospitals, a project he collaborated on withPeter Pronovost and theAmerican College of Surgeons. Makary was also the lead author in the original paper introducing a Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture.[23]
Makary has called for the public reporting physician-endorsed quality measures by hospitals.[24][25] Makary also advocates for price transparency and has led efforts to ask hospitals to stop suing their low-income patients.[26]
In 2016, Makary and his colleagues exposed loopholes in theOrphan Drug Act accounting for higher drug pricing. His article "The Orphan Drug Act: Restoring the Mission to Rare Diseases",[27] covered by Kaiser Health News,[28] ledSenator Chuck Grassley's office to announce an investigation.[29]
Makary, along with Michael Daniel, authored a piece in the British Medical Journal that claimed that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Multiple critics pointed out the article's poor methodology of how said number is calculated, suggesting the number they presented, just under half a million death per year, is likely an overestimate.[30] Critics have claimed that such numbers give the public the wrong impression regarding the safety and quality of medical care, allowing groups like alternative medicine to further push people from seeking appropriate care.[30]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Makary has been a proponent of treating the pandemic as a public health threat,[31] masking,[32] vaccines and early vaccination strategies[33] that prioritized maximum coverage against severe disease similar to the UK vaccination strategy, and protection provided by natural immunity.[34][independent source needed] Makary has also been an outspoken opponent ofvaccine mandates, various FDA and CDC policies, and restrictions at colleges and universities.[2]
In February 2020, Makary said on television that the United States needed to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously and that people should stop all non-essential travel.[35] In addition Makary called for a national lockdown to help slow the spread of the virus and enable the healthcare system to respond and reduce morbidity and mortality.[verification needed] In May 2020, Makary advocated for universal masking in an effort to enable businesses and schools to re-open to minimize economic and educational damage across the United States.[36]
In November 2020, Makary was critical of the pace at which the FDA was approving the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer.[37] Makary had taken issue with the speed at which various US government health organizations had taken to evaluate medications or perform COVID-19-based research.[38] In early February 2021, Makary advocated for prioritizing getting as many vaccinated with single doses versus holding vaccines back for second doses.[39]
In a February 2021 op-ed inThe Wall Street Journal, Makary predicted that "At the current trajectory", COVID-19 in the United States would "be mostly gone by April" 2021, primarily as a result ofnaturally acquired immunity, which would result inherd immunity.[40] The article's estimates of herd immunity were criticized for being higher than the best available data supported.[41] Later that year, theDelta andOmicron variants of COVID-19 caused hundreds of thousands of additional deaths in the United States.[3]
Makary considers himself pro-vaccine but has also criticized vaccination mandates for populations other than healthcare workers.[2] Makary recommended a single-dose mRNA vaccine regimen for children 12-17 to minimize the occurrence ofmyocarditis as a reaction, contrary to the CDC's finding that the risks of infection "far outweigh" those of the two-dose vaccine schedule.[2][42] In December 2021, he appeared on a podcast to argue against vaccine boosters, referring to himself as an "unboosted male" and saying that theSARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant was "nature's vaccine".[43]
On May 20, 2025, FDA Commissioner Makary andCBER directorVinay Prasad published an article inThe New England Journal of Medicine announcing that the FDA would limit COVID-19 vaccines to people over 65 or at high risk of serious illness and would require manufacturers to conduct additional large studies to evaluate their benefits for children and healthy younger adults.[44][45]
On March 6, 2025, Makary met before theU.S. Senate Committee on Heath, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).[46] His nomination was advanced by the committee to a U.S. Senate vote with a vote of 14 to 9,[47] and subsequently confirmed to the position on March 25, 2025.[8]
On July 10th, Makary posted a statement as FDA commissioner listing several priorities of the FDA under his guidance, announcing the launch of an generative AI tool and integrating it to do "AI-assisted reviews".[48]
On July 14, 2025, Makary appeared on Fox News discussing FDA's new efforts to ban certain food dyes, during which he stated that the FDA is shifting towards using anecdotal evidence as data when regulating food products: "We have a lot of data and it may not necessarily be the traditional 50 year randomized control trial follow up. It's data from families that say their kids have been acting with bad behavior ... and they eliminate the petroleum-based food dyes and the behavior improves. That is data."[49]
Makary is the author of theNew York Times Best Selling bookUnaccountable, in which he proposes that common sense, physician-led solutions can fix the healthcare system.[50][51] Makary is also the author ofMama Maggie a personal story about his distant relativeMagda Gobran, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee working in the garbage slums of Cairo.[52][53][54]
Makary's 2018 bookThe Price We Pay describes how business leaders can lower their healthcare costs and explores the grass-roots movement to restore medicine to its original mission.[55] Makary is also the editor of the surgery textbookGeneral Surgery Review.[56]
In his 2024 bookBlind Spots, Makary urges readers to think critically about today's medical consensuses.[57] In this book, he examined cases where medicine got science wrong, such as the insistence that opioids are not addictive or urging consumers to avoid foods high in fat.[58]
Makary is aCoptic Christian.[59]
Makary donated to Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign in 2008. He also gave money to Republican House MemberFrank Wolf in the mid-2000s.[58]
He has been a public adviser to Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health care think tank.[7]
Makary is the recipient of numerous research and teaching awards, including theBest Teacher Award for Georgetown Medical School[19] and research awards from the Washington Academy of Surgery and the New England Surgical Society. He has been a visiting professor at over 30 U.S. medical schools and lectures frequently on innovation in health care.[60] Makary was named one of the most influential people in healthcare byHealthLeader magazine in 2013.[61] In 2018, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.[62]
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